Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 May 9

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From today's featured article

Siward was an earl of 11th-century northern England. The Old Norse nickname Digri and its Latin translation Grossus ("the stout") are given to him by near-contemporary texts. Siward was probably of Scandinavian origin, perhaps a relative of Earl Ulf, and emerged as a powerful regional strongman in England during the reign of Cnut the Great (1016–1035). Cnut was a Scandinavian ruler who conquered England in the 1010s, and Siward was one of the many Scandinavians who came to England in the aftermath of that conquest. Siward rose to become a sub-ruler of most of northern England. In the early 1050s he turned against the Scottish ruler Mac Bethad mac Findlaích. Despite the death of his son Osbjorn, Siward defeated Mac Bethad in battle in 1054. More than half a millennium later the Scotland adventure earned him a place in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. St Olave's church in York and nearby Heslington Hill are associated with Siward. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Ruby Boye in her Navy uniform

... that Ruby Boye (pictured) was Australia's only female coastwatcher?
... that not having been observed by a potential rescue ship, three survivors from the Margaret Olwill coordinated their shouts to attract the attention of a second ship?
... that the pear sucker arrived in the eastern United States from Europe in the early 1800s and took about 100 years to travel across the country?
... that the Turkish international Dilara Özlem Sucuoğlu started to play football in Germany at the age of five inspired by her father, a football coach?
... that the Father Serra statues in Ventura, California, have been vandalized and called "a direct slap in the face" of Native American cultures?
... that Blanche McVeigh's home workshop had a Sturges printing press so heavy that the floor needed to be shored up to support it?
... that Casualty's list of special episodes includes the first webisode for a BBC continuing drama?
... that some people from Ohio don't give a damn for the whole state of Michigan?

In the news

Mark Williams in 2015

Mark Williams (pictured) defeats John Higgins to win the World Snooker Championship.
In American horse racing, Justify wins the Kentucky Derby, ridden by jockey Mike Smith.
The InSight spacecraft and its companion MarCO cubesats are successfully launched towards Mars.
The eruption of Hawaii's Kīlauea volcano, and the subsequent earthquake, forces the evacuation of nearly two thousand people.

On this day...

May 9: Liberation Day in the Channel Islands (1945)

Mihail Kogălniceanu

328 – Athanasius became the Patriarch of Alexandria.
1877 – Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Mihail Kogălniceanu (pictured) made a speech in Parliament that declared Romania was discarding Ottoman suzerainty.
1901 – The first Parliament of Australia opened in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, exactly 26 years before it moved to Canberra's Provisional Parliament House, and exactly 87 years before it moved into the Parliament House in Canberra.
1918 – First World War: Germany repelled Britain's second attempt to blockade the Belgian port of Ostend.
2012 – Pilots of a Sukhoi Superjet 100 ignored alerts from the terrain warning system and crashed into Mount Salak in Indonesia, resulting in the deaths of all 45 people on board.

Gaspard Monge (b. 1746) · Gopal Krishna Gokhale (b. 1866) · Anthony Wilding (d. 1915)

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Today's featured picture

Framing is the fitting together of pieces to give a structure support and shape during the process of construction. Framing materials are usually wood, engineered wood, or structural steel. Building framing is divided into two broad categories: heavy-frame construction, where vertical supports are few and heavy, and light-frame construction, where supports are numerous and smaller. Support may be provided through rigid panels or diagonal bracing.

Shown here is the framing of a home in Sabah, Malaysia.

Photograph: Uwe Aranas

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